The world has stripped the pause out of our lives. Managers today must stop and take the time to get clear on where their businesses are going and where they want them to go. That means asking the question: what does winning or excellence look like? It’s not just the financial metrics of winning, though that’s really important too, but other components of success as well, including adaptability and sustainability.

It’s never been clearer that the world of work has changed even in the last several years:

• Communications—you can instantly connect anytime, anywhere with anyone via cell phone, email, Skype, Twitter, PDAs, social media, and blogs; keeping connected to friends, family, and important for your purposes—existing and potential customers.
• Information—we’re always just a couple of clicks away from getting answers to almost any question, which is especially important for your customers.
• Speed and size—distance has been eliminated as a boundary around the globe. Faster and smaller is the new way of life. A 10-second hiccup in connectivity can seem like an eternity.
• Technology—is there anything that hasn’t been tremendously impacted by advances in technology, and who knows what’s just around the corner even next year?
• Competition for customers—today, more than 1 million different products on average are available in a supermarket.
• Leveled playing field—The ability to share information around the world instantaneously, coupled with the ability to access it easily, means it’s less complicated than ever to start a business.
• Generations and diversity—there are four generations of people at work for the first time ever in the U.S., meaning differences in needs, wants, values, and desires is enormous.

These changes set the context for how a business—in order to be great—must be agile and flexible in a world that’s changing faster than anyone ever imagined. 

There are lots of “thought bubbles” that get in the way—limiting beliefs that drive our behaviors and keeps us running, sometimes in the wrong direction, because we’ve got this value around speed that trumps other considerations that are important in today’s market. The pace that we tend to operate makes it particularly easy to come up with simple statements that aren’t necessarily based in reality, and certainly don’t make for great leadership.

The recession is technically over; however, sales teams are still facing more competitors going after the same projects, price pressures, or the new competitor—prospects doing nothing.

 The recession is also testing sales managers to see if they can provide sales environments that keep their sales teams’ heads up and hearts engaged. Here are six tips for leading your sales team in this post-recession economy.   

#1 – Seek out good news. Assign each salesperson with finding good news and sharing it with the rest of the team.  

#2 – Step up your coaching efforts. Conducted role plays with your sales team to see if they know how to quantify the cost of the problem or the gain of an opportunity? This selling skill is KEY in a buying environment where cost justification is king. 

#3 – Decrease desperation. In desperation, salespeople don’t take the time to build trust, make deposits in the relationship account, and practice the law of reciprocity. Remember: processes are efficient, while relationships are not.    

#4 – Balance something old and something new. Social media is the new mode of prospecting. Teach your sales team to integrate new social media with old principles of influence and selling skills. Social medial marketing tools create the opportunity, but selling skills close the opportunity.

#5 – Revisit negotiation skills and strategies. Discuss with your sales team the mindset they need to possess during tough economic times. If your sales team is not convinced on the value they  can bring, why would the prospect invest with your company? Work with the sales team on strategy and tactics. Many salespeople drop price without any concession from the prospect which is a win-lose strategy, and leads to a transactional sale versus a value sale. Caving in too quickly on price also creates distrust. The prospect is thinking, “If you lowered your price that quickly, why wasn’t it lower in the first place?”

#6 – Inspire and motivate. As a sales manager and share “tough times” stories with happy endings. Never underestimate the power of motivation. Leaders are made famous by their inspirational rhetoric. There is a time to train and coach. There is also a time to inspire and motivate.

Put your leadership hat on. Help your sales team keep their heads up and hearts engaged. Good sales leaders are needed now more than ever.  Now, that’s good news.  

Source: Vistage International